Colour Printers, what would you do?

Hi all

Hope this is the right place for this & my apologises if I am repeating.

At my school we currently have colour printers in all three of our ICT rooms, but now we're getting fed up with the cost of the toners and the speed in which they are used up.
So the plan is to only have black and white in two of the ICT rooms and the colour printer is in the Head of IT room.

Now at present his room has a HP Colour LaserJet 2606dtn, which is not bad until 30 PCs send a 20MB Publisher, Powerpoint or some other large graphic file then we can be waiting 30 minutes for the printer to start.

So he would like a new colour printer with the following:
1.Must cost no more than £500.00
2.Must have Network capabilities
3.Must have a duplex unit
4.Must be cheap to re toner and maintain
5.Must be fast and deal with what ever the student send to it in a reasonable time

(I know, I am asking for a lot)

Some of the ones I have looked at already are:

Epson AcuLaser C2800DN
Epson AcuLaser C1100DN (can't seem to find this one on the net, but I believe such a device does exist)
Samsung CLP-620DN

Is anyone using any of these, are you happy with the result?

Can any one suggest a good colour printer, which can adhere to the following:

Must cost no more than £500.00
Must have Network capabilities
Must have a duplex unit.
Must be cheap to re toner and maintain
Must be fast and deal with what ever the student send to it in a reasonable time

Thanks in advance

Rob

While you are doing this, now is the time to get some Print Management software installed. Something like Papercut or Print Manager Plus

Myself i would get a refurbished HP 4650. It meets all your requirements. Send me a PM and i will give you the details of the people we get them from. They will give a competitive price.

There are loads that fit the bill, but here are a few of the less obvious boxes that I can suggest to look at that tend to be well regarded that fit your criterea:

Ricoh SP C312dn - A lot of printer for not a lot of money.
Kyocera FS-C5350dn - 30ppm colour and mono and probably the cheapest to run using OEM toners in your budget.
Samsung CLP-670nd or 770nd - you mentioned the 620, but at the moment the next model up is cheaper than the 620. The 770 is more expensive nut cheaper to run.
Canon i-Sensys LBP7750cdn - Good printer at a decent price... OK running costs and a free 3yr warranty.

But also what FN-GM said about refurbs is a good idea... There are a lot out there and they can be great value.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by elsiegee40

While you are doing this, now is the time to get some Print Management software installed. Something like Papercut or Print Manager Plus

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We have PCounter the problem is staff have always got "free top ups" and they just print class sets (30 print outs) of 2 to 5 page documents.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by robriley

We have PCounter the problem is staff have always got "free top ups" and they just print class sets (30 print outs) of 2 to 5 page documents.

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Therein lies your problem. If the school want to sort out printing costs they have to get tough with the printing. Replacing the printers won't help.

It's painful and SLT has to drive it.

We've got very tough printing rules for staff now, but it has sorted out the worst of the printing problems. Staff were told by SLT that I do not have the right to top-up staff accounts automatically. In practice, I do top up, bt only if the cause is justified and they know that I'm printing usage reports that get stuck in front of the bursar once a term.

The teacher who cost one third of the school's printing budget, pre-enforcement, was very put out but now uses the photocopier!

How are your printers shared? though a print server.... then it shouldn't take that long for the first job to start.

If you want to be evil you could always set the colours printers to default to gray scale to save toner if they have a separate black one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by p858snake

How are your printers shared? though a print server.... then it shouldn't take that long for the first job to start.

If you want to be evil you could always set the colours printers to default to gray scale to save toner if they have a separate black one.

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Printers are installed on the Print Server and shared, stations add the printer when students and staff login. A black and white printer is also installed in the room.

One thing to consider with this approach to having a shared colour printer in one ICT room.... the inevitable disruptions to lessons as a steady flow of people come in seeking printout.

We went the other way, now each of our ICT suites have a colour laser printer and a monochrome laser printer, managed by PCounter.

We also charge staff for printing using PCounter, there were howls of anguish when the billing kicked in but it has done the job & our print volumes have fallen.

We provide two printer drivers per colour printer. One is defaulted to greyscale only and using papercut deny any colour jobs. Pupils and staff get it as their default printer. If a pupil requires colour they have to browse to the colour printer via web printing and because of permissions set on the asp page are prompted for username and password (decided by the dept in question). Also for pupils no more than 4 pages can be printed at one time and they are restricted via a weekly allowance of £5 for all printing. Restricting printing for staff would be a no here, but I would love to implement it.

We have gone completely the other way - all colour printing, except for Art And Design who manage their own printing budgets, goes through the school photocopier and is charged to the departments concerned. If pupils need colour printouts they have to go through the relevant subject teacher and the department charged. This usually means that only final versions are printed in colour

Hi all
Thanks for your comments, I have been to the head of IT and he likes the look of the Canon i-Sensys LBP7750cdn.
So it looks like the plan is now to get the canon install it in his room and remove the other colour printers. I keep them just if people start making sounds about the missing printers.

He doesn't mind people coming into his room to print, but it might encourage students to get the teachers to have the job printed on the colour copier.

At our next all staff meeting, and curriculum leaders he is going to tell them that the days of free staff top ups are over and all new toners are paid for by a central pot and departments are expected to pay for top ups for their staff.

Thanks again

Rob

No print management here - we use to have Print Manager Plus on the old Server 2003 network, but since upgrading to Server 08 the Assistant Head decided it would be a good idea to let staff and students print whatever the hell they like. My boss has just visited the deputy head to replace her colour inkjet cartridges, seeing the price on the box she goes "My they are expensive" (derrrrrr). We keep moaning about how much they could save if they could be bothered to sort it out, but they don't so we keep ordering toners :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by robriley

Hi all
Thanks for your comments, I have been to the head of IT and he likes the look of the Canon i-Sensys LBP7750cdn.
So it looks like the plan is now to get the canon install it in his room and remove the other colour printers. I keep them just if people start making sounds about the missing printers.

He doesn't mind people coming into his room to print, but it might encourage students to get the teachers to have the job printed on the colour copier.

At our next all staff meeting, and curriculum leaders he is going to tell them that the days of free staff top ups are over and all new toners are paid for by a central pot and departments are expected to pay for top ups for their staff.

Thanks again

Rob

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Good luck! I know from experience it will be painful, but within a couple of terms the teachers do get used to it!

SLT will need broad shoulders too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by robriley

Hi all
Thanks for your comments, I have been to the head of IT and he likes the look of the Canon i-Sensys LBP7750cdn.
So it looks like the plan is now to get the canon install it in his room and remove the other colour printers. I keep them just if people start making sounds about the missing printers.

He doesn't mind people coming into his room to print, but it might encourage students to get the teachers to have the job printed on the colour copier.

At our next all staff meeting, and curriculum leaders he is going to tell them that the days of free staff top ups are over and all new toners are paid for by a central pot and departments are expected to pay for top ups for their staff.

Thanks again

Rob

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I'm hearing good things back from my end-users about Canon's newer lasers, so I hope the 7750 works out for you.
Am glad one of my suggestions seems to have hit the mark!

:yo: